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For the eighth year, FORBES has partnered with the Washington, D.C.-based Center for College Affordability and Productivity (CCAP) to rank America’s Top Colleges. The FORBES list of 650 schools distinguishes itself from competitors by our belief in “output” over “input.”

We’re not all that interested in what gets a student into college, like our peers who focus heavily on selectivity metrics such as high school class rank, SAT scores and the like. Our sights are set directly on ROI: What are students getting out of college?

College has become one of the biggest financial decisions students and their families make. They deserve all the information in-coming students can get on the questions that directly concern them: Will my classes and campus experience be interesting? Is it likely I will graduate in four years? Will I incur a ton of debt getting my degree? And once I get out of school, will I get a good job and find success in my career? We pointedly ignore any metrics that would encourage schools to engage in wasteful spending.

To answer these questions, the staff at CCAP gathers data from a variety of sources. They use 12 factors to calculate these rankings, each of which falls into one of five general categories. The weight of each category is noted. The complete methodology is available below.

Student Satisfaction (25%)

This is based on student evaluations from RateMyProfessor (7.5%), the largest site for professor ratings. This snapshot of what students think about their classes is akin to what agencies like Consumers Report or J.D. Powers and Associates do when they provide information on various goods or services.

Whether or not students transfer out is also a telling indicator of student satisfaction. CCAP uses both actual (12.5%) and predicted (2.5%) freshman-to-sophomore retention rates, as reported by the schools to the Department of Education database (IPEDS).

In a significant change from past years, we are including social media into our metrics. During the months leading up to the rankings' release we ran a targeted student satisfaction survey on Facebook. Respondents were asked where they attended school and how satisfied they were with their experience on a scale from 1 to 5. FORBES is the first -- and only -- ranking to make use of dynamic social media in rankings.